gateway
by wild wolf free17
Summary: collection of drabbles, mainly about Daniel
1. beneath the sky of my birth

**Title**: beneath the sky of my birth

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: spoilers for up to season 3; takes place sometime during that

**Pairings**: none stated

**Rating**: PG  
**Wordcount**: 360

**Point** **of** **view**: third

**Prompt**: Yellow

* * *

It's been a month and a half since Daniel saw the sun he was born beneath, the sun that toughened his skin on the ancient sands of Egypt. A month and a half since he left on a mission with SG-7, since Jack said _don't get lost in some ruins_, and Sam wished him luck, and Teal'c cautioned him to keep a weather eye on the sky. Daniel had grinned and waved, then followed someone else's team through the 'gate. A month and half since he saw SG-7, since Saul died saving his life, since Mike was pulled away yelling, since Les went down bleeding. A month and a half in a hole, only seeing and hearing anyone when his captors visit to demand information he doesn't have and wouldn't give if he did.

Whoever they are, they know he was Hathor's beloved and they think he has gou'ald secrets in his brain. And they think Earth is the key to defeating the goa'uld. For some reason, they believe broken bones, ripped skin, and soul-deep bruises will have him spilling everything he's buried away.

A month and a half, and he hasn't said a word since that first day. He's screamed and wept, whimpered and groaned, but he hasn't told them a thing. When he has the strength, he's proud of that.

He's buried everything about Earth, about stargates, about the various allies probably looking for him, if he knows Jack. He's hidden in his mind anything that could compromise his friends and his home.

He remembers his name. He clings to it. And he thinks about the sun, high in Egypt's sky, and he feels it baking him in comfortable heat.

And when the Tollans come for him, when they bring him to the Nox, when they send a message home, and he sees Jack for the first time in a month and a half, he whispers _I want to feel the sun_ before sleeping for a week.

Jack and Sam and Teal'c take him outside on the mountain and he sits on the grass and he lets the sun warm him.

And he knows he's home, he's safe, he's free.


	2. phoenix

**Title**: phoenix

**Fandom**: SG1/SGA

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: AUish

**Pairings**: none

**Rating**: PG  
**Wordcount**: 390

**Point** **of** **view**: third

**Notes**: there is a very epic and involved backstory to this. It will probably never see the light of day, though.

* * *

Atlantis remembers her builders, the curious and aloof and experimental people who made her and left. They did not give her life-she woke after they fled into the spirit, abandoning their bodies as they did her.

These humans are not equal to her makers. They use the builders' tools like children, uncomprehending. But they are kind, and one delights in her while another tries so very hard to understand everything, to learn her secrets.

She has seen them both before, these spirits called John and Rodney. Before she woke, in the last days before her builders fled. They were wanderers, something different from her builders, or the builders' children, or the allies, or the enemies. Something she had not seen before or seen since.

Phoenix, they called themselves, and a third was with them, a boy they did not name.

And at first, the builders were hopeful, but Phoenix called them young and foolish and said they had waited too long and nothing could be done.

And Phoenix left. Soon the builders followed. And Atlantis slept alone until she woke herself to wait.

Phoenix has returned in the guise of her builders' children and Atlantis knows they do not. They believe themselves to be John and Rodney, a soldier and a scientist, but they _know_ her and each other. She sings for them, in ways she did not even for her builders.

Marauders come, fakes and liars, and in their wake, the boy returns, the youngest of the Phoenix, and as he steps onto her, Atlantis surges.

All three collapse and the humans rush to their sides. They sleep and awaken remembering .

John, Rodney, and Daniel. A soldier, a scientist, and the man who woke the stargate of a long-untouched world. Wanderers from afar she knows from days when her builders still walked her halls.

Their spirits are bright now as they rise in the infirmary, as they ignore the other humans to stare at each other.

"Of course," says the one known as Daniel now.

Rodney huffs and John smiles. "A hundred thousand years," John muses. "A lot of changes since then."

"I can't believe I forgot," Rodney complains.

Atlantis hums in pleasure, her Phoenix home again. The builders formed and used her, but the Phoenix loves her and with them finally home, no enemy can stand for long.


	3. when the North Star breaks through

**Title**: when the North Star breaks through

**Fandom**: SG-1/White Collar

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: AU for both shows; I've yet to see the later seasons of SG-1, but I've read fic

**Pairings**: none stated

**Rating**: PG  
**Wordcount**: 950

**Point** **of** **view**: third

**Prompt**: Blue

* * *

Claire Ballard had a cousin named Marcy. Besides her father, Marcy was her only family in the world.

Marcy was a small-time grifter and her partner was a fighter who didn't go down when the mob told him to.

And while Claire set up an exhibition in New York, Marcy's partner was beat to death to send a message.

Marcy, five months pregnant, ran.

Claire and her husband died days later and their son entered the same system his cousin would flee in fifteen years time. And it would be almost two decades after that when they would meet, Claire and Marcy's boys. Both survivors, both geniuses, and both able to find trouble anywhere.

o0o

In the middle of an undercover op with his FBI keeper, Neal Caffrey picks up an artifact awaiting auction. A light flashes and Neal falls, unconscious before he hits the floor. Peter gets him immediate attention, reports in, paces around the hospital, and almost punches the Air Force officer who arrives to take Neal away. Captain Harrison's superior, Colonel Mitchell, takes over, but Peter still refuses to budge, and no one's making any progress in diagnosing Neal, much less fixing him. And he's getting worse.

Colonel Mitchell's superior, General O'Neill, arrives and tells Peter to come with him and Neal to the one place that might help. Peter looks at Neal, still and small in the bed, and agrees.

o0o

Dr. Daniel Jackson greets Peter in the infirmary of an underground base. O'Neill calls him the ancient expert, which means nothing to Peter.

"Can you help Neal?" Peter demands, part of him glad they confiscated his gun. He may have very well drawn it to wave around, if he still had it.

"We examined the device, Agent Burke," Jackson says soothingly, his eyes as blue as Neal's. Peter hadn't believed that possible. "I think we can recreate what happened in reverse. That should wake him up without damage."

_Without damage_, shit. Peter hadn't thought that, of what might be different. Brain injuries are so dangerous, and nothing is _physically_ wrong with Neal. He just won't wake up. In fact, he's slipping deeper, further away.

Peter takes a slow, deep breath. Jackson smiles at him and walks over to O'Neill. They talk in soft voices; Peter ignores them to focus on Neal, looking so young on the bed.

Finally, Jackson goes to the artifact, in a plastic bag on a tray. He reaches into the bag, grabs the artifact, and says something in a language Peter doesn't recognize.

Whatever it is, it works. Neal gasps and sits up, gagging. Peter sighs in relief but keeps his distance while Dr. Fraiser, CMO of the base, attends to Neal.

As Neal catches his breath, Peter notices from the corner of his eye that Jackson is staring down at the bed, mouth open in shock.

O'Neill notices too, because he says, "Danny?"

Jackson shakes his head, mutters, "It's nothing." He smiles once more at Peter and walks out of the infirmary.

Neal is panicking on the bed and Peter slips in to bark, "Neal!" Neal freezes till he focuses on Peter and then he asks, "What's going on?"

"Let them help you," Peter says. "We'll get the explanation when you're better."

Neal looks him hard in the eyes but acquiesces.

o0o

Neal is back to a hundred percent within the hour. O'Neill slips out for a little while but comes back to lead Neal and Peter to a briefing room. Jackson and a blonde woman O'Neill introduces as Colonel Carter, PhD, are the only other people in attendance.

First they are given non-disclosure agreements, then Peter sits in disbelief and Neal grows steadily more excited as O'Neill—with many interjections by Carter and Jackson—explains about the Ancients and the various technology they left behind, only affected by people with a special Ancient gene.

"A gene you have in abundance, Caffrey," O'Neill finishes. "We've only come across a few people as strong or stronger than you."

Neal is bouncing in his seat, grinning. Peter shakes his head. He doesn't want to believe it, but a bright light knocked Neal down and out for hours with no physical cause or symptoms.

O'Neill watches Neal with the gentle amusement of a parent at a playground. Carter looks as excited as Neal, but Jackson has something like painful hope on his face.

"Mr. Caffrey," Jackson begins. "What do you… can you tell me about your parents?"

Neal's face closes off just as quick as when someone at work makes a jab about his life before or prison. "Why do you ask?" he replies, icily polite.

Peter interrupts. "You've checked his record?"

Carter says, "Yes, when we first realized he'd activated an artifact."

"There's nothing before he was fifteen," O'Neill adds. "We're curious."

But Neal's staring at Jackson, and he says quietly, "My mother was Marcy Ballard."

Aside from Havisham, Peter may be the only person in the world to understand how hard it was for Neal to say that.

Jackson smiles and tells him, "My mother was Claire Ballard."

Peter realizes instantly why Jackson's eyes are just as blue as Neal's. And glancing from one to the other, they have the same hopeful expression, the last-ditch dream of an orphan that maybe this family will, _at last, for keeps_, be the one.

Peter shoots a glare at O'Neill, who nods. "Carter, Burke," he says. "Let's go grab some supper."

Carter stands and hurries from the room. Peter follows, meeting O'Neill at the door. "Guess we'll be seeing more of each other, then," the general says jovially.

"Guess so," Peter replies calmly.

He hopes this family is everything Neal has dreamed.


	4. separate what they signify

**Title**: separate what they signify from what they are

**Disclaimer**: only the General is mine; title from Adrienne Rich

**Warnings**: future!fic

**Pairings**: none stated

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 210

**Point** **of** **view**: third

**Prompt**: Stargate SG-1, any; a ceremony to retire the designation SG-1.

**Note**: I haven't seen much of the later seasons, and I only know Vala&Mitchell from fanfiction and SGA.

* * *

The day Teal'c goes through the gate for the last time, General Evans retires the designation SG-1. Colonel Mitchell has been dead for eight years, General O'Neill for ten, Doctor Jackson for twelve, and Colonel Carter for seventeen months. Vala left half a decade ago.

There will never be another SG-1. General Evans folds up four American flags; they'll be delivered to the appropriate places by young officers who never actually knew the heroes represented by a lacking piece of cloth. He says a few words, about honor and integrity and greatness—Jackson opened the stargate, O'Neill led the way, and Carter was one of the best minds of her (or any) generation. Mitchell reunited them. Vala and Teal'c each helped saved worlds not theirs, and showed all the power of Washington that allies would always be there.

There are no words to describe what the universe lost with each of their deaths, but at least Teal'c is still out there, helping the Jaffa rebuild a society worth fighting for. At least Vala is still conning her way across the galaxy.

General Evans asks for a moment of silence. An entire mountain quiets. When he raises his head and nods to the officers with the flags, life goes on.


	5. It's That Time

**Title**: It's That Time

**Fandom**: SG-1/NCIS

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: takes place anytime in either series

**Pairings**: Tony DiNozzo/Daniel Jackson

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 115

**Point ****of ****view**: third

**Prompt**: Stargate SG-1, any, When (s)he started dating a member of the SGC (s)he had no idea how crazy his/her significant other's surrogate family was.

* * *

"I think it's time to meet the family," Tony announces on their six-month anniversary.

Daniel chokes on his Duck a l'Orange. "I'm sorry?" he gasps out before draining his glass of water.

Tony smiles apologetically. "I promised Gibbs he could vet all my girlfriends after... well, yeah. And I know – and _fully _appreciate - that you're not a girl, but the point is still the same." He bats his eyelashes. "Pretty please?"

If he meets Tony's family, then it's only fair Tony meet his. After sipping his wine, he nods decisively. "I'll meet Gibbs," he agrees, "if you meet Jack."

Tony's grin is so brilliant Daniel can't even wait till after the meal.


End file.
